Deserted streets from all over the world at a given had caught the imagination of the Reuters photographers and the series had become a rage and motivated many other photographers to venture out into the streets and click similar ones. The pictures were eerie in their very appearance but there was a strange beauty to them, a beauty that none had witnessed till then. The undressed virginity of the streets beckoned the human beings who had been locked up for around eight days straight. The photographs were taken on 31st March 2020. Still trying to figure out how to deal with the seclusion imposed on them, human beings were some sort of a living mess without the regular messiness; the cupboards and cutleries remained untouched. Bed lines were not changed. Time slowed down until one could listen to the slow ticking or smooth sailing of the clock hands.
The first wave was photogenic in many ways and there was a
constant supply of images from all over the world, especially from India; of
laborers vanishing into the remote villages, hapless youngsters getting
thrashed by the lawless law enforces and images of uncountable and unbearable
suffering and pain. Each picture vied for attention; they shrieked from the
pages or screens for our conscience to wake up and do something. Dried rotis
scattered all over the railway tracks, blistered feet of young and the old,
children walking on their toes on the cruelly melting asphalt roads on the days
of merciless Indian summer. Artists safely marooned at homes had many images to
bite into and chew too; masked human figures were the mildest of them.
Somehow the second coming of Corona has not provided the
world with arresting photographs. Is it because the pandemic is not now
orchestrated itself simultaneously and severely in different parts of the
world? May be that is the one reason for the lack of impactful images. People
dying in the Indian streets, pavements, in front of the failed health care
systems did make touching pictures but the images were still isolated in their
frames and too scattered within Indian cities to create a solid and focused
impact. The funeral pyres burning even on the residential parks and footpaths,
the mass cremations and so on were registered for the world by the BBC
photographers. An aerial shot of lights; it was the anti-thesis of that day
when the megalomaniac Prime Minister had asked the country to light lamps that
night for expressing gratitude to the health workers.
Tragedies always do not make good pictures. Prolonged
tragedies scarcely make good photographs especially when the decisive points
are everywhere, all the time, non-stop. So they make impactful videos and
reels, helping television camerapersons to do the needful. Photographs are the
static statements of an event whereas video cameras see events as events in its
continuity. Or is it the over exposure tragedies through videography that has
rendered the photographs of the same event less impactful? I am not sure. I was
looking for some interesting photographs from the election campaigns, the
winning and losing camps, but could not find any. People were prevented from
celebrating the electoral victory considering the pandemic but the
photographers were not asked to stay at home. Somehow, none could come up with
a good photograph.
Photography is a medium that tells lies to establish a truth
but relies on a lot of truth when it wants to establish no lie. News
photographers and documentary photographers are destined to capture the
perceived reality in aesthetically presentable frames. If that is the case, the
perceived reality seems to have turned cold and uninspiring, be it the scenes
from the pandemic affected locations or from the victory stands of the election
candidates. Most of the thanksgiving photographs issued by the political
parties and the victorious candidates are not candid; they are photoshopped and
airbrushed images. We are in a time when photographs from the real locations do
not look real. They may be look like pictures from wastelands nothing but
endless agony in offer. Has death and despair killed the photographable
moments? Has victory itself gone into the depths of existence to negotiate with
the futility of winning and losing?
-JohnyML
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